Characters in Focus [DEUX] -- Saturday Night You Bull Sessions

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Date Posted: 20:09:42 06/25/04 Fri
Author: CCS
Subject: Characters in Focus [DEUX]
In reply to: CCS 's message, "Characters in Focus [UN] (the non-eyesore version)" on 21:41:50 06/17/04 Thu

In a further elaboration of the previous disclaimer, I hpoe you don't take my insults of minor minor characters too seriously. I'm playing Ezra Pound here; anything that isn't crucial is a waste. I also skipped one sketch you may noticed. My apologies, it had a lot of characters and so I decided to put it off so that some stuff can actually be posted.

----foosball wizard----

Boozzer - One z greater than a drunk, Boozzer taunts Sally and Alex to varying degrees of effectiveness. Some clever (Crest Whitestrips), some not (loseaholic). Given his unabashed persona, it's kind of odd how he holds off explaining what his portion of the bet is. Obviously it was left as is to allow Sally and Alex to talk about it, but the setup as is feels like a character break on Boozzer's part. Furthermore, one thing I'm not seeing is what Boozzer has to gain out of the bet. If he loses, then he forfeits his pez dispenser. If he wins, then his friends get to have group man sex; I guess he gets to watch? Doesn't truly get in the way of the funny, but it does get in the way of the character.
Foosdude - Doesn't do a thing. Kind of silly to cast the part, like when Dean Edwards played Cop #2 oh so many times.
Sally - Apparentally the state high school champion in sex, she's a hard-nosed girl that doesn't back down without a fight. She had a charge to her that brought this sketch its funnier moments, like when she settles Alex down regarding the bet she made. She also has the Ragan-style childishness at times, with "fraidy cat", "you're silly" and especially the "pff you're on." Keeping these in leaves a looser sketch, which I think gets the mood about right for the arrival of [The Great] Gazoo.
Alex - A worthless pretty boy, he provides a perfect comic fool for Sally. Despite a funny characterization, he also has a tendency to get garblemouth. Like a Colin Quinn commentary, some of the lines just don't roll off the tongue, for example: "if she loses, after I'm done having sex with those guys I'm gonna have sex with you and see how you like it!" If you wanted to play off his inability to be concisely witty, I feel you should have exaggerated the difficulty a tad more.
The Great Gazoo - Deus Ex Machina incarnate, he solves problems with a fingersnap. Dialoguewise, however, he's all over the place. Between the "dumb-dumbs" he hits a misplaced "foolish human." Some solidarity towards his comic perspective would increase his comic appeal, in my opinion.
Posse - Mostly they just stand there and act menacing, funny-like. The one thing I want to point out is how hilarious I think it is that you have them walking off with the foosball table.

----weekend update----

Tina Fey - Being WU, and not a conventional sketch, I'm going to cover the commentaries under their main character (excluding my own) and the jokes under Tina. As a sort of character thing for Tina, the adlibs written in for a few jokes [wwje, midnight oil] feel hackish because the very nature and appeal of ad-libs is that they are ad-libbed. The WWJE joke was terrific I thought and it pained me to have to read that irritating "This is all true, you guys." There is no need to hard sell a funny joke. All in all, the jokes were pretty good, with very few real stinkers. Anyone who thinks Christina Aguilera currently has breast implants should take another look at her... [For all those struggling with the dp'd, the first d means double. If you can't figure out the p, you ain't old enough anyway.]
Cosimo Cavallaro - I had a hard time figuring this guy out. By the introduction, I thought he was just a chef. I understand him now to be more one of those high-concept, low-skill art�stes. Due to the Q&A format of the bit, he doesn't really evolve a personality, but more just says random funny things. I like the parts were you played him as thinking he's very high-brow, like when he talks about the composition of the ham, but it doesn't stick. The next line he's talking about feeding his dog rum-soaked pizza.
Sen. John Kerry - SNL has already established a comedic perspective for Kerry, so the job here is not so much to create a character as it is to match it. You do a good job of this, having him struggle with appeal, and the whole sleepy voice thing. The subliminal song message was good, but Tina should say she's playing it backwards, as a viewing audience wouldn't realize this.

----agree to disagree----

George W. Bush - Friendly, but childish and light on the intelligence, Bush provides most of the humor in this short piece. The intro Georgie stuff isn't so much funny as there, but the Independance Day screw up is fairly well written on his end. The sketch ends rather abruptly, just as tension has been created between George and Moore by Cheney's Deus Ex Machina style arrival. I would have liked to see Bush doing a bit more, as is he's held back from getting anywhere extremely funny by the length of the sketch. Let it spiral a bit more and you should see good results.
Michael Moore - For the must part, he's not especially comic. He's kind of an average joe that makes movies, with the semifunny revelation that he's actually congenial with Bush. This disposition never gets strained though, his dialogue remains rather average and unremarkable even as Bush descends into stupid childishness. He also shows a bit of an ego with the line: Mr. President, tell me more�what else did you like about my film? One would think Moore is staunch in his beliefs and doesn't need to compliment fish with his favorite documentary subject.
White House Page - Lots of screen time with absolutely nothing to do but hand Bush a DVD. He could be replaced with a drawer.
Dick Cheney- Somewhat reprising his role as a man who controls the President and those around him with an iron fist, he delivers one line but not all that much funny because he doesn't really play off anything.

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Replies:

Characters in Focus [TROIS] -- CCS, 01:35:24 06/29/04 Tue
- Re: Characters in Focus [QUATRE] -- CCS, 15:36:51 07/02/04 Fri